人格特质、家庭环境对中学生道德判断能力的影响

以855名中学生为被试,采用路径分析等实证方法构建了个体差异变量人格特质、社会环境类因素家庭环境对道德判断能力影响的关系模型,揭示了人格特质、家庭环境各维度对中学生道德判断能力发展的直接和间接影响。当前中学生的人格特质对道德判断能力发展的总影响效应为正,家庭环境对道德判断能力发展的总影响效应为负。人格特质和家庭环境是一个整体,还应从综合的角度,用发展和系统的眼光看待其对道德判断能力的影响。     

Empirically validated treatments—What now?

Progress in the identification of empirically supported psychological interventions is described, along with possible mechanisms for training in such treatments. Obstacles to training established clinicians, including time, cost, and geographic barriers are also discussed.     

Treatment Engagement: Building Therapeutic Alliance in Home-Based Treatment with Adolescents and their Families

Client engagement is an essential yet challenging ingredient in effective therapy. Engaged clients are more likely to bond with therapists and counselors, endorse treatment goals, participate to a greater degree, remain in treatment longer, and report higher levels of satisfaction. This study explored the process of engaging high-risk youth and their parents in a unique home-based family therapy intervention. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 19 families who completed family therapy sessions that included a core component aimed at increasing treatment engagement. Parents’ and youths’ perceptions of engagement suggest the importance of developing therapeutic alliance with therapists, who facilitated building a shared alliance among family members. Implications for improving client engagement are discussed within the context of alliance building with the therapist and among family members.     

African American Children’s Depressive Symptoms: The Prospective Effects of Neighborhood Disorder, Stressful Life Events, and Parenting

The prospective effects of observed neighborhood disorder, stressful life events, and parents’ engagement in inductive reasoning on adolescents’ depressive symptoms were examined using data collected from 777 African American families. Multilevel analyses revealed that stressful life events experienced at age 11 predicted depressive symptoms at age 13. Furthermore, a significant interaction between neighborhood disorder and parents’ engagement in inductive reasoning was found, indicating that parental use of inductive reasoning was a protective factor for depressive symptoms particularly for youths living in highly disordered neighborhoods. The importance of examining correlates of depressive symptoms from a contextual framework, focusing on individuals, families, and neighborhood contexts, is emphasized.     

Family Influences on Adolescent Delinquent Behaviors: Applying the Social Development Model to A Chinese Sample

The current study applied the Social Development Model (SDM) to improve understanding of the mediation processes through which the family environment was related to Chinese adolescent delinquent behavior. We tested the hypothesized model using structural equation modeling with questionnaire data collected from 736 Chinese 7th and 9th graders, their parents, and their teachers from two middle schools in Beijing, China. Testing the model separately for boys and girls yielded adequate fit indices for both although the hypothesized model was not invariant across gender and several gender differences were identified. The SDM appeared to be a valuable tool in studying the development of Chinese adolescent delinquency.     

The flexible application of a manualized treatment for PTSD symptoms and functional impairment related to the 9/11 World Trade Center attack

The purpose of this treatment effectiveness study was to evaluate the flexible application of a manualized cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) for PTSD and related symptoms in survivors of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Treatment delivery ranged from 12 to 25 sessions; therapist experience ranged from no prior training to extensive training in CBT; and training and supervision of clinicians in the treatment manual was considerably less than that required in a randomized clinical trial (RCT). Paired t-tests demonstrated significant pre-post reductions in symptoms of PTSD and depression for the flexible application of the treatment. A benchmarking analysis revealed that the moderate-to-large effect sizes found for these variables were similar to those obtained in an RCT of the same treatment. Furthermore, effect sizes on measures of outcomes particularly relevant to this population of mass violence survivors such as functional impairment, use of alcohol and drugs to cope, and use of social support to cope, were also medium to large.     

Black Women and White Women: Do Perceptions of Childhood Family Environment Differ?

INTRODUCTION: Few studies have examined racial differences in perceptions of childhood. Little is known about how Blacks perceive their own families, particularly the family environment that they experienced in childhood. METHODS: A community sample of 290 women (55% White, 45% Black) from two-parent families, heterogeneous in age and social class, was examined using a self-administered questionnaire, including the Family Environment Scale (FES), followed by a focused interview. Siblings were used as collateral informants. RESULTS: The psychometric properties of the FES showed remarkably little variation by race: The internal scale reliability, correlations between scales, and factor structures were quite similar. Although both White and Black women reported good childhood family environments, Black women when compared with White women rated their families of origin as more cohesive, organized, and expressive, and lower in conflict. Sibling responses corroborated these findings. DISCUSSION: This study addresses a gap in the research literature and provides important evidence of strengths in Black family relationships as reported by a community sample of women. The psychometric properties of the FES, found to be strong for families of both races, lends support to our findings and those of other researchers who have used this measure.     

Family expressed emotion prior to onset of psychosis

This study compared components of expressed emotion (EE; rejection, warmth, protectiveness, and fusion) across three samples: two in which the subjects had an established schizophrenic or mood disorder, and a third in which the subjects were at high risk for an initial psychosis. METHODS: Family members rated themselves on the Social Adjustment Scale-III and, in the prodromal sample, estimated the duration of the prodrome. RESULTS: Scores were all but identical in the two established-disorder samples but were markedly higher than scores in the prodromal sample on all four factors. In mothers, warmth (decreasing), rejection, protectiveness, and fusion (increasing) were significantly correlated with duration of prodrome, whereas for fathers, warmth and protectiveness were similarly correlated. CONCLUSION: These data suggest that expressed emotion is largely reactive to deterioration manifested by the young person developing a psychotic disorder, rather than a trait of family members.     

Family ties after divorce: long-term implications for children

Drawing on the data from the longitudinal Binuclear Family Study, 173 grown children were interviewed 20 years after their parents' divorce. This article addresses two basic questions: (1) What impact does the relationship between parents have on their children 20 years after the divorce? and (2) When a parent remarries or cohabits, how does it impact a child's sense of family? The findings show that the parental subsystem continues to impact the binuclear family 20 years after marital disruption by exerting a strong influence on the quality of relationships within the family system. Children who reported that their parents were cooperative also reported better relationships with their parents, grandparents, stepparents, and siblings. Over the course of 20 years, most of the children experienced the remarriage of one or both parents, and one third of this sample remembered the remarriage as more stressful than the divorce. Of those who experienced the remarriage of both of their parents, two thirds reported that their father's remarriage was more stressful than their mother's. When children's relationships with their fathers deteriorated after divorce, their relationships with their paternal grandparents, stepmother, and stepsiblings were distant, negative, or nonexistent. Whether family relationships remain stable, improve, or get worse is dependent on a complex interweaving of many factors. Considering the long‐term implications of divorce, the need to emphasize life course and family system perspectives is underscored.     

Suffering and Spirituality in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson

After a brief review of recent accounts of spirituality in its relation to medicine and psychotherapy, Emily Dickinson’s poetry is considered as a springboard to a more specific account of spirituality. While not conventionally religious, she is arguably among the most spiritual of poets inasmuch as her themes of God, love, beauty, and especially death and suffering all depend upon the jarring juxtaposition of embodied human experience and transcendent human significance. Her poems suggest a complex view of the ambiguous relation of suffering to human action and meaning. Psychotherapy is a spiritual process not because it necessarily involves supernatural beings or destinies, but because it represents the struggle between human will and aspiration on the one hand and acceptance of biological and other realities on the other.